


Leonid's No Good Day

by mstigergun



Series: Inglorious [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Broken Bones, M/M, The Hinterlands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:52:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4662249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mstigergun/pseuds/mstigergun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>How he should hate to be reduced to a hunter while the Herald drags his nearest and dearest throughout all of Ferelden on missions that may very well be blessed by Andraste herself. They close rifts and try to save the world; Leonid kills rams. </i><br/><i></i>Hardly<i> the sort of life he’d imagined for himself.</i></p><p>Leonid Trevelyan, devotee of the Inquisition and its tavern in particular, hates the Hinterlands. He doesn't hate the Herald, but he's not impressed at being sent to shoot things when he could be attending to grander matters. Instead, he has a shit day -- but at least the company's not half-bad.</p><p>(For, and also co-authored by, <a href="http://weyrbound.tumblr.com">weyrbound</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leonid's No Good Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delphox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delphox/gifts).



> I've borrowed [weyrbound's](http://weyrbound.tumblr.com) absolutely wonderful [Sacha Trevelyan](http://weyrbound.tumblr.com/tagged/sacha-trevelyan) for this piece -- not to mention weyr's incredible insight and writing talents. This is truly a collaboration from start to finish and we've ended up crafting something of which I'm very, _very_ proud. I'd stick her on as a co-author, but she's in Tumblr land. This is also really _for_ weyr -- it started out as a gift and ended up being this co-authored labour of love. I count myself lucky to have such a talented and thoughtful friend! And, dang, what an editor -- everyone should be so lucky.  <3
> 
> Some additional thanks to both [Stacey](http://enviouspride.tumblr.com) and [Hayley](http://openthepocketwatch.tumblr.com) for lending their enthusiasm and insight to this project.

"Put off that mask of burning gold

With emerald eyes."

"O no, my dear, you make so bold

To find if hearts be wild and wise,

And yet not cold."

 

"I would but find what's there to find,

Love or deceit."

"It was the mask engaged your mind,

And after set your heart to beat,

Not what's behind."

 

"But lest you are my enemy,

I must enquire."

"O no, my dear, let all that be;

What matter, so there is but fire

In you, in me?"

 

(“The Mask,” W.B. Yeats)

*

“This is _stupid_ ,” Leonid huffs, scrambling up to perch on the highest promontory in this particular neck of the woods. He stares around them – nothing but trees and more trees and, sweet Maker, still _more_ of the insufferable wilderness. How he’s supposed to see a damned thing in this infernal place is entirely beyond him.

Behind him, a dry, low voice shapes words with the care of wheelwright shaving wood. “I agree, Leonid,” a sincere accordance. “Building watchtowers _does_ seem a waste of time and resources.” Said so very plainly that, anyone who didn’t know better – namely, anyone not Leonid – might think it a serious statement.

Leonid shifts his weight, throws a look as pointed as a dagger down at his companion, who stands at the base of the sharp rock. Staring up with the perfectly placid expression that is, every line of it, a _lie_.

“Allow me to clarify,” Leonid intones, eyes narrowing for a moment. “Sending us along to poke about while Cullen’s soldiers do all of the work is _stupid_.”

Sacha’s lips twitch, face shaped from shadow and the wan sunlight of the day. His broad hands rest by his sides, steady. “Perhaps the Herald imagined the soldiers might work a little more quickly to spare themselves your complaints.”

A breathy scoff flies from his lips. “Hardly. I’m a walking piece of theatre. Why, you couldn’t _buy_ such fine entertainment in Denerim. Let’s remember what Fereldens are accustomed to, shall we?”

“I did see a compelling puppet show in Amaranthine once,” Sacha says, shifting his weight. “It was an allegory of the Fereldan Civil War. Or… a fable about a ram and a bear. It might also have been a parody of small village Chantry politics.” He pauses, eyes traveling down to Leonid’s vest with its many hidden pockets. “I don’t suppose you’ve brought any puppets along?”

Leonid chuckles. “Alas that I left mine back at Haven!” He pauses, turning to scan the treeline again, a perfunctory glance meant to placate the vague sense of duty commanded in him by the Herald. “They _do_ like their allegories, though – Fereldens, not puppets. Dreadful things, allegories: so _morally instructive_.” Leonid sees nothing of note while peering through the shadows gathering between trees and under bushes, which is a surprise to absolutely no one.

If he strains, however, he can hear the sound of hammers pounding against beams – Cullen’s soldiers doing their part to tame the Hinterlands, though they are utterly beyond wrestling into anything that even remotely resembles civilization. The air’s grown teeth, a chill snapping at any slivers of exposed flesh. Even the sun is spartan: it does nothing more than illuminate the leaves ahead that wave like coloured flags, little beyond casting temperamental shadows across the uneven terrain. It’s made Sacha more quiet than usual. He hates the cold more than Leonid hates – well, plenty of things, and the air’s bitter enough to make even Leonid uncomfortable. With the wind this vicious, Sacha no doubt realizes that every time he opens his mouth a complaint is liable to fall out – and he’s the sort who’d rather keep them inside.

“Such a _beautiful_ day,” Leonid sighs.

Sacha makes a vague sound in his throat. “I admit, I am eager to see it over with. I look forward to the evening we will spend together at camp. ”

“Maker knows I’ll be happy to see our little muddy village again. Camp’s not quite as fun: it’s missing a tavern.” He blinks up at the sun, a cold white orb in the sky behind scuffed clouds.

They’ve been in the Hinterlands for a fortnight now, and that’s fourteen days too many as far as he’s concerned.

Personally, Leonid would sooner send the soldiers through the woods to flush out whoever it was who was causing the horsemaster trouble. He wouldn’t even mind being with them when they ending up tussling with yet another wild-eyed band of miscreants. Better to shoot _something_ than traipse about squinting at distant shadowed gullies and yellowing brush.

He slides down the edge of the boulder, landing in a small cloud of dust. Leonid rolls his shoulders, runs a hand through his hair to brush out the fir needles, and then starts off toward the next peak he might climb. He pauses only to toss a jaunty grin Sacha’s way – he _did_ land rather cleverly – and sees the other man’s smile widen a fraction.

Good to know he still has his uses beyond running around pointlessly at the Herald’s behest.

Still, complain as he might – and he does, very theatrically indeed – Leonid isn’t entirely ignorant of why the Herald had them head out alongside Cullen’s soldiers. Well, he isn’t entirely ignorant of why the Herald sent _Sacha_. The countryside is lousy with rebel mages and templars. Sacha can tame the former without murdering the whole lot of them, and bargain handily with the latter. Seeing that the Herald hasn’t yet decided with whom to ally, it’s wise enough to have an emissary adept at negotiation.

And Sacha’s rather good at killing things if it comes to that, although the type of quiet he goes afterwards unsettles even Leonid. Still, his skills are nearly unmatched, something Leonid’s had the chance to witness firsthand, something he remains –

Well. Perhaps not _impressed by_. He might say _in awe of_ , but that goes rather too far. Entirely too far. Pathetically far, in fact.

Leonid sniffs, scouring the thick wall of boughs to the north as he traces a path through low-growing brush. He stares at nothing in particular, really, but scrutinizing even the bland nothingness that is the countryside is a decent way to turn his thoughts away from wherever it was they were heading so stalwartly.

Leonid, unlike his dear companion, is more of a novelty in this limping beast called the Inquisition. Certainly, he can drink anyone in Haven under the table – has done so on several occasions, actually, much to his continuous pride – but when it comes to martial _prowess_. To _negotiation_.

He’s happy to save it for the other Trevelyan. Sacha’s line might be separated from Leonid’s by several hundred years – _and_ , as Leonid had said when first they met, _what appears to be a sense of familial duty that would be considered positively quaint in my decrepit little family_ – but they still make decent travelling companions. And fair enough: were Leonid travelling with his actual family, rather than a man with whom he shares a name but less common blood than with the Empress of Orlais, he’d be much less likely to enjoy himself.

In several ways, in fact. Leonid’s mother would have a fit. Would likely _die_ , even.

He should write her a letter, he thinks distantly. See if he might collect a portion of his inheritance early. Leonid tosses a quick look over his shoulder at Sacha, who’s squinting up at the white sun overhead.

It’s damnably close to cute.

Perhaps he _won’t_ write. Putting any mention of this on paper would be dangerously akin to – acknowledging whatever it is, and Leonid is entirely aware that it’s best to not take things any further. Doesn’t want to. Certainly, Sacha is pleasant enough company, in Haven and outside of it, but. Well. Leonid has a camp _filled_ with prospects, after all.

A rustle from a distant thicket yanks him from the insipid spiral of his thoughts. Leonid draws up short, bow already in hand. Sacha moves to his side, hand already resting on the pommel of his sword. He shoots Leonid a questioning look, one edged in a dark wariness.

Of course he wouldn’t have heard it, wouldn’t have noticed it was a furtive bestial sound rather than those belonging to apostates or templars.

Leonid reaches out and catches Sacha’s forearm. “Animal,” he says, leaning in closer as Sacha angles his head to catch the quiet word.

Sacha’s hand drops back to his side, though he stays in place. They’ve both spent enough time in the Hinterlands to know that, though prey animals are easy enough to handle, the other beasts that pursue them – whether ursine or human – can be dangerous indeed. And handling danger is something at which Sacha is particularly adroit.

Turn as Leonid’s mind might on the particular skills of his companion, Leonid knows why the Herald sent him along as well. After all, Leonid is nothing if not perceptive. He is very good at killing things from a distance, and it just so happens that there are starving refugees in the Hinterlands in need of feeding.

Not that he’ll breathe a word of it to anyone – this killing of innocent animals. Maker knows he has his reputation to preserve.

Of course, he _might_ miss. Still the animal rustles, making unseen progress toward them. Though he’s taken to bothering with practice in Haven, shooting a beast is a tricky business here, when the forest is thick with shadows, when the light does little more than create more distraction. When a sharp wind snaps boughs and dried leaves alike.

How he should hate to be reduced to a _hunter_ while the Herald drags his nearest and dearest throughout all of Ferelden on missions that may very well be blessed by Andraste herself. They close rifts and try to save the world; Leonid kills rams.

Hardly the sort of life he’d imagined for himself. Still, whatever tiny sliver of devotion lives in his smallest toe stirs to life. If there’s a beast ahead, it might as well be a _dead_ beast. After all, if it doesn’t feed the refugees, some apostates will set it on fire and then they’ll be _nourished_ and even harder than rogue templars to clear out of the damned forest.

He lifts his bow, trains an arrow on the dark animal shadow coalescing between distant black tree trunks, like lines of ink on the horizon. The muscles of his shoulder tighten, holding the arrow taut. One breath, another, and –

The arrow splits the air between Leonid and the ram. A spray of arterial blood through the thick branches, and the ram collapses upon the ground.

“Look at that,” Leonid says, slipping his bow back into its straps across his back. “Not an apostate at all. Pity, that.”

“More of a pity to break with your pattern now.” Sacha brushes by him, heading off toward the ram with as much steadiness as the arrow Leonid just loosed. “Although it would be rather an inauspicious beginning – to shoot someone in the woods, instead of in battle.”

Said lightly enough that Leonid feels heat clawing its way up his neck. An _inauspicious beginning_.

“Now, now,” Leonid says, straightening and brushing imaginary dirt off his wrist guards. “Everything I do is auspicious. Even murdering apostates. Or templars. I’m hardly _picky_ about this whole… killing business.”

Sacha pauses and turns, tilting his head to be sure he’s caught all of Leonid’s bluster – because _of course_ Sacha knows it’s just that. Leonid’s managed to avoid killing anyone thus far; his victories are limited to hunting and making threats he doesn’t follow through on.

A half-smile. “It’s not such a terrible thing, to be picky.”

Something else he’d shield Leonid from, then, though of course the damned man needn’t. Like those early days in these same woods. Leonid’s skin prickles. He shifts his weight, tries for a half-laugh though it becomes difficult to breathe. “Well, all the apostates and rogue templars will certainly be happier for it. Maker knows I’d thin their numbers quickly enough.”

If Sacha hears the breathlessness, the disquiet fluttering away beneath Leonid’s ribs, he doesn’t comment. Instead, he turns back toward the shadowed divot where Leonid’s ram pools blood across the soft dirt.

Leonid scuffs his heel for a moment, blinking down at the toe of his boot. Stupid. He wrenches his attention upward and takes off after Sacha, eyes trained on his broad back, the dark skin of his neck, the dense curls corralled atop his head – which are impossibly, blessedly soft to the touch after Sacha’s laboured over them for ages.

“I suppose we could send this off to the refugees at the crossroads,” says Sacha when they draw close to the dead ram, its viscera staining the soft ground. “They’d never eat apostate. Ram might do, though.”

The skin at the back of Leonid’s neck prickles again, an itch he can’t scratch. Sacha flicks his attention to him for the barest of moments, dark eyes flashing with –

 _What_. Humour? At seeing more than he _ought_ to? At being stupidly _perceptive_? It’s one thing to know Leonid’s never managed to make good on all those promises of _raining death from above_ ; another entirely to think that he’s being, well, _noble_.

If Sacha believes he’s going to peel back Leonid’s layers to reveal something like _decency_ , the man’s got another thing coming. There’s nothing to unearth, no secret goodness, no hidden _heart of gold_. So Sacha can take his assumed cleverness and stick it –

“We’ve a patrol to finish,” Leonid says, looking away. “Leave it. If any of the villagers at the crossroads dare to show even a scrap of initiative, they can come collect the damned thing themselves – though if they _had_ any in the first place, they’d be out here doing their own hunting. If they continue to whine in the mud while grasping at the Herald’s hems, the wolves will be all the happier for it. On several fronts.”

At some point, his gaze wanders back. Sacha still stands over the ram, head tilted.

Leonid’s arms tuck themselves across his body. They watch each other for a prolonged moment, a distant bird prattling on in some nearby tree. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, then back again.

That damned _man_.

“Well,” Leonid says finally with a jerk of his chin, “if _you’ve_ any idea how to field dress a ram and hang in from a tree until we can run it to the refugees, help yourself. I’m from Ostwick – the only _tying up_ I know how to do is a different sort entirely.”

A trick of the light, perhaps, but Sacha’s ears _appear_ to darken at the very tips. “Oh, you’re from _Ostwick_ ,” he says, chasing it with an indulgent smile. “Funny. With all the whining, I’d assumed Orlais.”

Leonid laughs, then, appreciating the irony latent in the other man’s comment – particularly given that Sacha’s words are shaped by the slightest Orlesian accent. “You’re one to talk,” Leonid says, “all _nearly Orlesian_ with none of the _whining_ or _glamourous mask-wearing_. Why, that’s half the fun gone.” A breathy complaint Leonid knows he doesn’t mean. That they both know he doesn’t mean – it comes out far too softened with affection for that.

Sacha pulls a short knife from a boot and bends over the beast, first slitting its throat to drain its blood.

“But you _do_ think I am fun,” says Sacha, a hint of humor colouring his tone as the ram’s warm blood sputters out across the soil. “Perhaps I should wear a mask. I am told my scars make me look unfriendly.”

“Hardly,” says Leonid. “The scars are _dashing_. The _bleeding out a ram_  may look a little intimidating, but it’s part of your charm! And you can’t help but be fun when you spend so much time in my presence. I’m infectious. Like a plague, only a great deal more handsome and less likely to result in untimely death. Unless you’re a ram, that is.”

Leonid hovers for a moment at Sacha’s shoulder, watching the dark blade split a seam up the ram’s chest, skin parting back like the wake left by a ship with wind in its sails. The air smells like hot copper and dried leaves – too much like the aftermath of the Conclave and the chaos that shaped the Hinterlands afterwards to put Leonid at ease.

He reaches out, a sharp, unbidden movement: the jerking of a marionette on strings beyond its control. Leonid’s fingers catch on the edge of Sacha’s shoulderguard, just where a sliver of skin is exposed. “I’ll go ahead,” he says. “Someone’s got to keep their eye on the prize.”

Sacha’s head tilts, though his attention remains pinned on the animal splayed out before him. “Be careful,” he says, once Leonid’s hand has slipped away. “There could be _apostates_.”

“Maker preserve me,” Leonid exclaims, clasping one hand to his chest as he backs away. His boots scuff over the soft dirt. “At least I’m under the holy protection of the Herald! That _must_ mean I’ve got Andraste herself on my side. I might face all the apostates the world and emerge unscathed. They’d write songs about me, you know – the bards, not the apostates. Rather shocking they haven’t already.”

Sacha huffs a disbelieving laugh, shaking his head.

Well, he _is_ a touch more serious about his duties to the Maker than Leonid. And of course Leonid catches the smile curving the other man’s lips. He just pretends he doesn’t, and heads off through the brush, long strides quickly building a buffer between them. If his fingertips go a little numb, if his own mouths shapes itself into an _entirely_ undignified smile, well. There are only these damned woods to judge him, and they’re the _Hinterlands_. He may be especially weak-hearted on this day, but the Hinterlands has done nothing but collapse in upon itself for weeks.

Leonid at least has a little wiggle room. After all he’s given the damned forest, it had best shut up and keep his secrets.

A line of thinking he recognizes as entirely foolish even as it takes him farther and farther away from the thick brush where Sacha guts the beast. Leonid ducks beneath a low branch, chasing after the sliver of higher ground he’d spotted from his last promontory. Above him, a bird squawks, grousing more loudly than even _he_ can manage. Even when he’d been here in the weeks after the Conclave and the air was thicker with flies than Ostwick’s sewers.

And it must be because he’s thinking about all of it – the Conclave, his beloved Ostwick, the repulsive softness of his own heart, the tiny and prickled branches slapping at his face – that he misses the change in the slope beneath his feet. That he doesn’t notice that it drops off to one side, sharp as the face of a castle.

Leonid’s foot slides. His stomach lurches, hands scrabbling after the omnipresent branches. The other foot gives; his fingers catch on a sharp tree limb. With a snap, it breaks, and he tumbles down over the rock face. Fast as an anchor through water, and down just as deep and dark.

*

He blinks himself awake what must only be moments later, and immediately wishes that he _hadn’t_.

His body is wedged awkwardly against rounded rocks, which have no doubt stamped him with bruises he’ll feel yet for weeks – feels them already, tender and angry. One against his hip, another by his spine, yet another slammed against his shoulder blade.

He sees the damage to his palms, scraped a vengeful and dripping red, when he reaches up to press a hand against his forehead. His skull, the whole damned thing, throbs like he’s been on a week-long drinking binge.

Leonid tips his head back, staring above him. The sky is still a pale, chill blue. Orange and brown leaves wave in the distance, like enthused spectators at a bloodsport. _Oh, heavens, look at that – he’s made a fool of himself. Best wave to let we know we do appreciate the effort, however ignominious_.

He rolls one shoulder, bracing a hand against a rock. _Best get up_ , he thinks, the blood behind his eyes pounding a fierce rhythm through his skull. Better up and battered than starving to death in a gulley. Maker knows he already experienced what starving felt like in the weeks after the Conclave; he’s no desire for a repeat.

With a push, Leonid jams one elbow against a rock and begins to ease himself up.

It’s a mistake: as soon as he shifts, he sees his ankle.

Funny, that he hadn’t felt it before – but he can certainly _see_ that it’s bent incorrectly, and the moment his thigh shifts, moves enough so that blood might once again pound toward his ankle, the white hot pain finds him. Starts to burn through his bones, a hurt that sears, that blots out the half-delirious cant of his thoughts. That hollows him out and leaves only –

A ragged gasp tears from his throat, and his hands shoot out, clamp down around the muscle just above the break. Fingers white-knuckled, throat tight, everything reduced to _pain_ and _ache_ and the distant echo of anger.

 _Perfect_ , he thinks, the word an angry brand upon his mind. Beautiful, in fact. Just – Yes, precisely what he _needs_ , this.

The immediacy of the pain draws away, recedes like the pull of low tide. His palms _burn_ , pressed so hard against his trousers that he can feel the seams imprint his bones. One hard breath, then another. He blinks furiously, staring at his knee, where there’s a small rip by the seam.

Better that than looking at his ankle.

Although, now that he thinks about it, these trousers have seen better days. He sniffs, rubbing his nose against his shoulder, and leans a little closer to inspect the worn stitching. He’ll have to speak with the requisitions officer when he returns, Leonid thinks dizzily. Maker knows he doesn’t want to be seen in any of the hand-me-downs that float around Haven. He’s _certain_ he’s spotted no fewer than five of Cullen’s soldiers wearing the same shirt – the one with the blue stain on the right cuff. And considering how infrequently those soldiers bathe, the shirts no doubt come with special little friends who like nothing quite so much as nibbling on human flesh.

As if he’d be caught dead in someone’s five-times-over discards. He may be just as likely to wake up in a gutter as not, but, by Andraste’s holy tits, Leonid still has _standards_.

It’s then that the situation hits him, as firmly as a palm to the side of his face. He’s broken his ankle and landed in a gulley in the _middle of the blighted wilderness_ , and he’s fretting over the state of his seams.

A laugh starts deep in his stomach. Climbs up his throat, where it tears free – a laugh that tastes like blood and bitterness and delirious _surprise_.

Sweet Maker. The shape of his life.

Leonid wrenches his attention away, stares blankly at the trees and rocks cradling him. How long ought he wait, clutching his leg in the middle of nowhere? What’s the reasonable timeframe before he resigns himself to misery?

It’s only after his fingers have started to go numb that he corrals enough of his good sense back in order to realize that he’d be well-served by one of his health potions. Leonid’s fingers loosen, and he rolls his weight to one hip with a loud groan, yanking a narrow flask from his belt. He pulls the stopper off with his teeth, tipping the red and viscous liquid down his throat.

It burns the whole way – but it’s a welcome fire. The potion sears away the pain aching its way up his leg. Once again, he wraps his fingers around his calf, even the angry skin of his palms relenting for long enough to give him this: a moment of clarity.

Surely Sacha will find him, Leonid thinks. The warrior will finish gutting the ram and stringing it up, and then he’ll _find_ Leonid and all will be well. Sacha is pre-eminently capable: he will devise a solution of some sort and then, before Leonid can complain _too_ much, they’ll be back in Haven and Eloise will put him back together and they’ll all go drink far too much in the tavern.

It’s an imagined future he wants so badly that his bones ache with a different sort of hurt, that his mouth goes dry with the need for it.

A thin breath escapes Leonid’s nostrils. When, he wonders, did he become _this_ person – hopes pinned entirely on a specific scenario, on particular _people_. One individual, perhaps.

“Stupid,” he hisses between gritted teeth. He’s just – alone and in pain and very much in need of a stiff drink. And a mage who has a decent understand of the healing arts. That’s all.

He stares for a long time at nothing in particular. Thinks for a long time about nothing in particular. Only this: Ostwick, this blighted mission the Herald has sent him on, Cullen’s _stupid_ soldiers and their _stupid_ watchtower. A letter he might write to his mother.

The possibility that Sacha won’t find him doesn’t even cross Leonid’s mind. He may be down a gulley, and uncharacteristically quiet, but his companion is –

Reliable.

How very disgusting.

Still, it’s a thought his mind continues to circle: a nauseating realization, a senseless _vulnerability_ , in the silence of the forest. Something he can’t turn from, even as the sun begins to dip toward the horizon, as the air grows more chill. Even when the dark-feathered birds flash across the sky toward fairer climes. Even then.

Sacha will find him. He’s far too stubborn _not_ to.

Only when Leonid’s eyelids have taken to drooping does he finally hear the sound of rustling brush above him. The distant echo of his name, but an unfamiliar iteration: one shot through with worry.

Maker, but it _should_ annoy him.

It doesn’t. Instead, something warm flares within his heart. “Here,” Leonid croaks. Then again, louder. Of course he'd have a half-deaf man trying to find him in the twilight; what would Leonid's life be without ridiculous circumstance.

More rustling. Leonid tilts his head back once again, the crown of his head touching the chill stone behind him. Over the edge, a dark face materializes in the gloaming.

“It took you long enough,” Leonid grinds out in as chilly a tone as he can manage when his heart twists like this, when relief slices through him more readily than a dawnstone blade. He squints up at Sacha as his companion stares down over the embankment. “I’m disappointed. I’d have thought you missed me _long_ before this.”

“Are you alright?” In place of the easy quality of his voice, a tightness. Even at this distance, his strong features are – taut. Lined with an uncharacteristic worry.

Leonid’s thighs ache from holding this position, the bones of his fingers like iron brands inside of his skin – a burning hurt that won’t yield. “No,” he says, the syllable leaving his mouth a little strangled and far more frail than he’d like. He clears his throat, blinking furiously at the twilight above Sacha’s head. Looking anywhere but _at_ the man. “Well, I’m not _dying_ , but I’m quite certain I’ve broken my ankle.” His throat tight, eyes prickling. Of all the things he’s weathered, a broken ankle is hardly the sort of thing to get weepy about –

But he’s not used to being hurt in this way. Not quite accustomed to being made to feel so – _this_.

“Stay where you are,” Sacha says, tone even. Deliberate. Leonid can almost feel the syllables in his bones, as soothing as a hot bath. The dim light of the day still slices Sacha’s face with omnipresent shadow. Deepens the furrow in his brow. “I’ll come to you.”

“I’m hardly going to go for a _jaunt_ with a broken ankle,” Leonid spits, but Sacha’s gone before he can catch the wounded tone. Thank the Maker’s mercy, that. Bad enough to nurse this frailty of heart; worse still to have someone else _know_.

He sucks on the feeling, holds it against his tongue, as Sacha disappears and picks his way down, emerging over the rounded rocks speckled with lichen to Leonid’s side. His presence is like a balm to the sickening anxiety in Leonid’s chest, one that immediately smoothes the currents of his thoughts. Sacha sidesteps several large boulders, which make him look – smaller, his tall frame maneuvering past the steep embankment and mossy rocks deftly for someone with such bulk. An unassuming and surprising grace in such strange circumstances: straight to purpose, but not panicked, not rushed.

Still, how worried he looks. How sick with concern.

Leonid won’t have it. “Where _is_ your sister when she’s needed,” he says, words tight between his teeth as Sacha draws within earshot. “Much better suited to this sort of thing than _you_ are.”

 _Pathetic_ , he thinks, and looks away. Leonid sniffs, staring pointedly at a twisted and bare bush in the distance.

Sacha crouches, something Leonid _feels_ rather than sees. His weight, his body, is a warm presence by Leonid’s side – a fire in the night that dwarfs any possible darkness.

 _Doubly pathetic_ , his mind gladly amends.

“You’ve certainly broken it.” Sacha’s voice is a rumble.

Leonid shrugs. “This countryside may break my ankle, but it will never break my _spirit_. Indomitable Leonid, they call me: _he may bend but never break_.”

Sacha half-laughs, and it’s then that Leonid knows he’s safe to turn back again. To look at his companion, whose dark eyes observe with an unsettling perception. Sacha’s broad hands hover above Leonid’s, which are white-knuckled around his leg. “I’m afraid you _have_ been broken in this, my friend. When did you last take a health potion?”

“Oh, ages ago,” Leonid sighs breezily.

Well, he makes a go at _breezily_. It comes out more _strained_ and _pained_.

Sacha insists he takes another before gingerly easing Leonid’s high boot off his foot. It’s a process that unleashes every single curse Leonid has ever learned, like a dam giving way and flooding the blighted countryside, but Sacha remains unperturbed. Even compliments him on the particularly creative and anatomically impossible suggestions he spits at his ankle.

Once Sacha’s eased the boot off, he bends his attention to prodding and poking Leonid’s ankle, patiently ignoring the hissed blasphemies and the curses now directed at his person. He pauses only once, thumb pressed against the ungainly jut of Leonid’s ankle bone against his puffy skin. “If this bluster helps you manage the pain, then of course, continue,” Sacha says plainly. “But it won’t change what I have to do to help you.”

 _To help you_. The words rattle around in his skull for a moment, during which Leonid feels his features stiffen, like they’re cast from a drying clay. Of course Sacha is _helping_ , and Leonid’s –

Being rather wretched. He swallows down the next particularly colourful string of insults about Sacha's half of the family that wait on his tongue. “Sacha –” he begins, feeling a deep and unsettling ache beneath his ribs.

“You’ll be alright,” Sacha murmurs. His thumb moves slightly, a soft and cool touch against the inflamed skin of Leonid’s ankle. “And so will I. I have had worse thrown at me than insults. The last time I had to help Eloise with an injury, she nearly threw a spout of flame at me. That, alongside the curses. I have thick skin.”

 _You’ve a thick skull_ , Leonid thinks distantly – an echo of his usual vitriol. He keeps it inside, though. No point saying it when he can’t even muster his usual enthusiasm.

Sacha shifts his weight. His head bends near Leonid’s, hands certain and warm against the swollen skin of Leonid’s ankle. Which Leonid can’t look at, not any more, not when it feels like the bloated and misshapen thing belongs to someone else. Instead, he stares at Sacha’s neck. At the precise way he’s fixed his hair in place.

“Believe it or not,” Sacha says, as casually as if he were mentioning the _weather_ , “this isn’t the worst break I’ve seen.”

“No?” asks Leonid. It comes out strained.

A pause, then, in a tone equal parts quiet and gentle, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I will bring you to camp, and your ankle will heal.” Sacha shifts again, and Leonid’s forced to meet his gaze – which is dark and steady and calm and _concerned_ , all at the same time.

To the Void with him, he always _does_ that: insists on the intimate and intense _eye contact_ when, really, he could just be looking at the curious angle of Leonid’s ankle. Or his lovely cheekbones. Anything else, really. Even his worn seams. Anything beyond offering comfort, beyond being so damnably _present_ and _good_ and _reliable_.

“You disgust me,” Leonid says, once Sacha’s flashed out his short dagger and sliced up the fabric of Leonid’s trousers.

“Do I?” He pushes Leonid’s hands out of the way after cutting long strips of fabric from the tattered ruins of the pants. Sacha finds sturdy sticks without even needing to roam far, bracing them so hard against to swollen and bruised skin of his ankle that Leonid hisses despite himself. Sacha adds a perfunctory, “Sorry.”

Leonid shoots him a stare edged in venom, then brings himself back on point. “No one,” he says, “should be _this_ reliable.”

Sacha winds the fabric around his ankle, tight enough to hurt – though it’s a pain that Leonid can sink into, one that becomes familiar as his siblings as he lingers within it. A comfortable ache, like familial disappointment.

“Not everyone would agree with that assessment,” Sacha says, calloused fingers resting for a moment against the exposed skin of Leonid’s calf.

He says it like it doesn’t matter, but Leonid’s clever enough to hear the hurt at the center of those words.

Maker knows it’s a hurt he knows too. But it’s one of the hurts best served by being a private, unseen wound, so he stays silent. Except, “Is _that_ what you call a splint? How I do pity the mages under your care when you were with your Circle. I’ve seen drunk dwarves bind far more deftly.”

Something Sacha ignores, tucking his arm underneath of Leonid’s and leveraging him _upwards_.

Sweet Andraste, it _is_ awful, the hurt that follows – but Sacha is an unyielding presence, soft and warm beneath the hard edges of his armour, and so Leonid finds that he can breathe a little easier. Even through the pain that stabs its way up his leg, splintering from ankle to hip. He sucks in long, deep breaths for a moment, righting himself as best he can.

Leonid blinks up at Sacha’s jaw, the twisted lines of his scars almost like veins in the darkening light. That just won’t do.

“Maker, _no_ ,” snaps Leonid, once he’s managed to balance himself on his good foot. “Move me to the other side. The _hearing_ one,” with a shove against Sacha’s large shoulder, firm and warm beneath his palm, to make sure he has the oaf’s attention. Sacha twists his head. “If I’m to be subjected to a broken ankle, I’d best be able to complain about it to a captive audience.”

A crease appears between the other man’s eyebrows. “It is better if –”

Leonid’s scowls. “For me, yes, it _would_ be better if I might stay here. This is the side with the lovely rugged scars, which go a long way in establishing confidence. They make you look like you could punch a bear, Sacha – but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make so that I can complain loudly and frequently about the state of the world.”

Overhead, dark shapes streak across the sky: bats chasing after their prey, mere suggestions of animal shapes against the sunset colours. Sacha watches him for several beats, eyes a liquid darkness, and then moves to readjust their bodies.

It _is_ more awkward this way, Leonid jammed against Sacha’s side, leaning far more heavily on him than he’d need to if they were hobbling through the forest with Leonid’s broken ankle between them, but – Well. There are other considerations.

In fits and starts, Sacha eases Leonid toward the end of the gulley, as its sides taper to gentler slopes, its numerous and incurably violent rocks petering out to nothing but small stones under the heel of his boot. All the while, his companion holds him, keeps him _moving_ while making sure Leonid doesn’t break.

It’s –

Leonid swallows, throat tight. The ceaseless pain, its endless ache and sharp little barbs, have rendered him weaker, less deceitful, like a red-hot sword cooling at the smithy. Hiss and complain as it might, it becomes less and less with each moment.

“You’re… not without virtue,” he says finally, as Sacha half-carries him from the crevice. Firm beneath the curve of Leonid’s arm against his neck.

Their heads are craned close together, close enough for Leonid to smell the warmth of Sacha’s skin, the oils he uses in his hair. He might inhale more deeply, except –

The skin around Sacha’s eyes crinkles. “No?” he asks, and Leonid can _feel_ the vibrations of the word work its way from throat to spine to the surprisingly soft skin of his neck. “High praise, that you might admit to a virtue or two.”

He pauses, then, hitching Leonid’s arm a little more firmly around him, adjusting their bodies so that he bears most of Leonid’s weight.

“We’ll head _that_ way,” with a tip of his strong jaw, “toward camp.”

Well, Leonid’s hardly going to argue, and so they begin their way in _that_ direction. His fingers curl uselessly against the cool metal of Sacha’s breastplate, an infrequent sheen in the dying light of day.

“Surely,” Leonid says, after a long silence, “you can’t expect me to admit to more than _two_ virtues, Sacha. I will give you that you’re very strong and not entirely unkind.”

Another huffed laugh. To the right, Leonid can make out the shape of a ram suspended from high trees. How long ago it seems. Sacha tilts his head toward Leonid. “And which of your virtues should I name? I’m afraid I’ve only a few to choose from.”

 _Only a few_ , Leonid thinks. Which puts Sacha up by that vague number on whoever came before him. He tries his best to coax his lips into a familiar shape, some wide smile that’s both uneven and pleased, but it feels as hollow as the rest of him. “They’d best be that I’m a great deal of fun, in both the tavern and bed, and that I’m a good shot. Else I’ll be insulted.”

The air’s cold enough that Leonid’s toes have gone numb, the sky above deepening toward obsidian. Sacha stops again. “You’ve already broken your own ankle, Leonid. I’m not sure your ego could take another blow.”

“ _Oh_!” A sharp laugh flies from Leonid’s mouth. Sacha tugs Leonid’s arm tighter around his shoulders as they shuffle up a steep embankment. “Cruel man.” A pause, during which Leonid gasps with the effort of scaling the hill. Maker, to be rendered so _weak_. Then, “Well, I _suppose_ I might practice a bit more. With Cullen’s soldiers.”

Sacha’s lips twitch. He stops at the peak of the embankment to check the ties of the splint he’s wrapped tight around Leonid’s ankle. “To which,” he says, head still near Leonid’s knee, “of your proposed virtues were you referring?”

Leonid snorts. Once again, they set off.

Which of his proposed _virtues_.

Well, if the man wants to continue _playing_ –

“You’re halfway clever, Sacha. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Sacha makes a low, vague sound in his throat. Something that might be a chuckle were it not for the tension in the muscles of his jaw. Though what _that_ means –

Of course, Leonid intends it to be a joke – Maker, anything to distract him from the ache burning away at the marrow of his bones – but he’s pleased to see that his little comment may have found a more tender mark. A stupid thing, this self-satisfaction. Simperingly _childish_. Like he’s a boy playing at romance, someone who wants to be worth _jealousy_ instead of –

Steadiness.

Vile, this. Wretched.

Sacha eases them past a particularly nasty thicket, the sky above deepening through twilight shades to hues more suited to night. Already, Leonid’s shoulders ache – but that hurt is a welcome change from the omnipresent agony that is his ankle. A numb sort of realization, a shocked hurt.

To have done this to _himself_ –

Because he was thinking of the fool beside him. At least in part.

If Leonid doesn’t deserve each moment of this, he’ll be damned to the Void. He knows better. Still, before he can stop himself, mind reeling in the strange place between the empty not-hurting and the unrelenting pain, “You’re quite easy to _look_ at, mind you.” He wriggles against Sacha’s side, worming his way closer while they stop to adjust the tangle of limbs they’ve become.

It might be that the skin of Sacha’s neck darkens, though it could simply be that Leonid’s engaging in fanciful flights of the imagination. Of wishful thinking.

Against the distance of the dark horizon, the flickering of firelight. Camp – the promise of relief, of respite, of a meager offering of drink and, better yet, the assistance Leonid needs to travel back to Haven. Back to what he’s best at: drinking and sleeping his way through their tiny and grimy Ferelden village.

Though –

Leonid sighs. Half-turns his head to look at Sacha, though the edges of his thoughts grow soft as loam after a hard rain. This man. Who has more _virtues_ than he can name, however disgusting. However –

He sighs again.

Sacha’s eyebrows tilt upward, head cocked toward him.

“Though handsomeness,” Leonid continues, made half-delirious with this, his neck craning closer still so that he can stare pointedly at the very edge of Sacha’s jaw, “can’t really be considered a virtue. If it were, I should imagine I’d have been sainted years ago. But, still. Something you might claim in addition to your other meager offerings.”

Above them, stars blink to life. Camp sounds slice through the chill air: distant voices, the clang of pots above the fire, horses whickering, even shrill and sudden laughter. Surprised that, through the weariness, there might still be something so delightful.

“You’re a curious man,” Sacha says finally. His eyes are dark as the sky above, but shot through with a different light: one equal parts wary and –

Intrigued. Or insightful. Or some other thing. How one’s meant to decipher all of these things from _eyes_ has always been and will continue to remain beyond Leonid entirely.

In any case, it’s more than enough softness for one day. With camp but a short hobble away, Leonid begins to feel himself return to his usual state. His spine draws up a little straighter. The blade once again plunged to the forge, once again called to unyielding brightness and fury.

“I aim to keep you guessing,” Leonid supplies, chasing it with a wry smile even though the ache that is his body tightens the corners of his mouth more than he’d like. Makes his face feel stiff, more a mask than anything else. Still. “First insults and a charming little cabin outside of Haven, now a broken ankle and a reluctant acknowledgment of your finer qualities, disgusting though they may be. I’ll be back to my old tricks soon enough, though. Did you see the Warden the Herald brought back from the lake?”

With a short chuckle, dry in the chill autumn air, Sacha again tucks Leonid against his body and walks him to camp. Where Leonid’s seen to immediately by one of the mages allied with the Inquisition who, though she’s no Eloise, manages to put him together well enough to send him back to Haven the next day. For better treatment.

Sacha disappears into the night as soon as he drops Leonid by her side.

“An excellent splint, though,” she says, after she presses a potion into Leonid’s palms – _one that will make you sleep the night through_ – and begins gathering the tattered remains of fabric and sticks that held him together long enough to see him here.

Of course it was.

He shrugs and shuffles off to his tent, tipping the bitter potion back and gladly sinking into a deep and sweet sleep. If he comes to long enough to hear about the Templar who’d delivered a ram to a group of refugees, well. It’s a thing as soon attributed to fancy as not. Something better left to the quiet void of dreaming than the bright acuity of waking.

*

Sacha stops to exchange pleasantries with the night watch. It’s the least he can do; their job is a difficult one. He remembers too many nights spent staring into the darkness beyond the ring of campfire, Eloise sleeping fitfully next to him. It’s easier, in a proper camp, the Inquisition banner flying overhead: a reminder that he’s not alone.

He ducks into the tent, careful not to disturb its occupant. Before the Inquisition, a broken ankle could very well have been a death sentence. Now, it is merely an inconvenience. Albeit a painful one.

Leonid groans, and Sacha freezes, watching the other man warily.

A few moments, and his eyes flutter open. Sacha sighs, defeated, and sits down.

“It was not my intention to wake you,” he says by way of apology.

“Mm,” Leonid groans. His eyes narrow, then relax, as if he has lost the willpower to keep them open.

Sacha slowly, deliberately, leans over Leonid, and presses his lips to his forehead. It is a selfish thing to do, but - he closes his eyes and remembers the foot stuck at an unnatural angle, the curses and cries at his touch, the feeling in his chest when he calls a name and hears no answer.

He pulls away. Leonid is asleep.

Sacha shivers as he exits the tent. It is tempting to stay, to fall asleep by the warmth of the other man, but it will be easier on Leonid to wake up alone. However ridiculous Sacha may find it - but, then, ridiculous is what he expects from Leonid. What he wants.

He makes his way across camp, nodding again to the night watch. If they invite him to join them, he pretends not to notice. They can tease him about his poor hearing later, but if he’s going to have a reputation for deafness, he might as well use it to his advantage. Sacha may not have a broken ankle, but the day has been long, and trying, and he feels nothing but relief as he climbs into his tent and strips off his armor. Outside, he can make out the sounds of camp: laughter, the crackling of fire, hushed conversation and easy camaraderie. He falls asleep to the sounds of men and women trading stories, secure in their companionship.

**Author's Note:**

> A letter that never ends up being sent:
> 
> Dearest mother --
> 
> There are all _sorts_ of interesting types of people in Haven, we who but rest at the feet of the Herald who is surely blessed by Andraste. I've even met someone. Now, I know -- I can practically _hear_ you in my ear. But Leonid, you're saying, that's so very unlike you. Have you finally deigned to become a respectable member of society? Has your time with the Herald reformed you? Have you become all that I might ever hope for in a son?
> 
> Well, mother, the facts are rather plain in this case: I have _always_ been all you might ever hope for in a son. There are many others who would delight to call me child, though not all of them would be nearly quite as maternal about the whole affair. The Marches, after all, draw all sorts.
> 
> Back on point. Yes, I am indeed seeing someone, though you know me -- I doubt I'll ever settle down. Imagine this, however: in the woods outside of Haven I ran into this strapping Templar and, Maker, didn't we hit it off? Of course, I've come to since find that he's out of the other Trevelyan line. You know, the one that stole the tea set? I suppose that makes us cousins, but that's never stopped noble families before!
> 
> In any case, this is about as serious and devoted and physical a relationship as one might imagine I could sustain. And one might imagine I can sustain a very physical relationship indeed. I may, in fact, ask for his hand -- and, while I'm at it, that tea set his side claimed for their own. Imagine that: our family finally reunited, in blood, in intimacy, and and in pottery.
> 
> Your dutiful and dashing son,  
> Leonid


End file.
